On the first one, rapidly, we used to be called dependants. My wife used to be called a dependant wife when we served in Germany. That was the term.
When we served in Germany, everything was handled by National Defence--the medical; the legal, when we went in front of a judge advocate, because of the SOFAs we signed with Germany, and so on. So when we were committed in that operational theatre, all of the civilians fell under the National Defence structure.
We are now committed to real operations in a foreign land, but because we're back home, all of a sudden, all those bets are off. Well, it doesn't work like that, in my opinion, and that's what we were trying.... If you are dependants of National Defence...and I would contend that the RCMP gang going over are the same thing. I even went in front of Madame Boucher in Quebec City, who was wondering whether or not she should still send policemen to Haiti and so on. I said, “Once they go to these missions, we should take care of them--not the city, not the RCMP.” So they belong--if I can use the term--to National Defence or Veterans Affairs Canada, and we do that and we acquire those capabilities.
Now, people will say that's a two-tier system. That's crap. That is a red herring. It is not two tier. It is responsible government to its citizens who are being committed to scenarios that the government specifically wants them to do, and the price of that is those sacrifices and those injuries, and you are then held accountable for that--the whole length. The new charter, in fact, essentially says that.
So no. The provincial government has its capabilities, but those who are linked to the military commitment and so on should be brought into the same or a similar process we had when we served in Germany. We ran everything and provided that capability. That's the cost of doing business.
On the media side, you never lie to the media, you never play coy with them, and you open up your doors to them. I think those are the three things the commanders in the field are doing now. The interpretation of the media, meeting locally and taking every Tom, Dick, and Harry pseudo-expert and NGO commentary and making that as fact...that is not particularly credible.
However, the only way the real story gets to you, ladies and gentlemen, is that you get your bodies over there—often. That's how you do it. You have to go and smell it, taste it, touch it, feel it, and sense it. Look into the eyes of those soldiers and look into the eyes of all those Afghans and Taliban; that's how you get the answer. The media is there floating around, and we should not even try to play with them, except the three principles I indicated.
But, ladies and gentlemen, we are apprentices compared—and I'll say it—to the Americans in regard to our politicians going into the field. You have to get out there. You're committing the reputation of this nation; you're committing Canadian blood in these foreign lands. There is nothing that should restrain you from going over.
And generals are essentially willing to do that. It's often a lot of the intermediate gang that tends to throw up roadblocks rather than the general officer corps. We want to know our politicians. We want politicians to hear from the general what's going on and from the corporal what's going on. And these people are eloquent. They know what the hell they're talking about. They'll tell you the real story and they won't bullshit you, and you can come back and you can bank on that. I think that is the way to go about it. Go get your boots dirty out there and bring that back home to your colleagues in caucus.